Home theatre build, help and recommendations please

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33coupe

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#269897 13-Apr-2020 14:47

Hi all,

As my build progress has somewhat slowed down, I have been thinking of a list of things I'm going to need for the separate lounge/projector.

I'm hoping for help, suggestions (anyone have any for sale) with the following please:

I'm looking to have a motorized projector screen on the wall by the hallway (someone said 102 inch will fit), hopefully can have it in the roof, flush with ceiling. Was thinking of going With a 5.2.2 setup

The problem is my couch will fill the width of the room has to go against back wall due to the ranch slider, which has got me thinking about my surrounds.
I have wharfdale 9.0s, poss wall mounted above, pointing down.
Now I'm thinking I might have to go with in wall speakers behind couch?

Other than that I'm looking for recommendations (new or second hand)

9.2 receiver
Ceiling speakers (Atmos and for zone 2 outside on deck and poss for rear)
Projector
Screen
2 X TV brackets (poss brateck?)
Speaker cable (currently using cable from blue jeans cable)

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

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#2460839 13-Apr-2020 23:38

I still prefer my projection over modern displays, despite not being 4k. For me it is the immersion first, so I'm a little biased.

I built/had built a dedicated room, not to dissimilar in size to your space, same width and 1m longer.

The first challenge with projection is light control, having a separate space ultimately is a major advantage to achieve that. However, I see some potential light control problems. Consider blockout blinds (that slide down a cavity) or heavy curtains with top housing to stop light reflecting around the curtain.

With a 102in screen your ideal distance is closer to 2.5~3m seating position. But as you note, that slider is a problem.
But here is a thought, in many cases we add these doors to access outside from every room we have. Then in reality you never end up using them. After having plans to do many things in our home, once you live in it, your plans and patterns change.

If it was my build, I'd remove the slider and have just a wall, swing the room 180 degrees, with the screen on the outside wall.
Blockout roller cavity blinds on the two windows and the room entry doors windowless.

But that is what I'd do and not your house bubble plan, so with all the potential light control problems, you should consider a large display as an option whilst you plan this room.

For sound, the big problem is the rears, there is no choice but to mount them high as possible as you don't want them at ear level otherwise all you will hear is one rear speaker in your ear. This isnt ideal, but I had to do the same, but I'm seated at 3m from the screen with 2 m behind of space which allows the sound envelope to develop from the rear with a reasonable sound field . But if you are seated hard against the wall the potential problem is a person seated in the corner will get a dominant high rear speaker. So an option is to pull the high rears a 1/4 room width in from sides(roughly 1.8~2m apart), this will balance the sound envelope better for the listeners for the whole width of the room. I'd use boxes, angled forward and down, if you have roof mounted downward firing you will get bad reflections off the rear wall. Atmos highs will be centralized (fore-aft), arguably a little closer to the listening position or angled towards the listening position. (There is Atmos standard layout plans as guidance).
You might have to add sound deadening to the rear wall behind the main seat as you might get "first mode" reflections dominating from your front speakers. This will be like a slight echo, reverb and room will sound loose and not solid.

Draw plans and elevations in true scale, then you can plan your cable runs.
If you plan on running HDMI in walls, have conduit fitted from the roof down to the HDMI outlet, or better use a continuous cable and if a long run, greater than 5m then consider additional booster, powered options.

Plan plan plan. Although some electricians do audio visual, not all understand the compound problems they can create. Make sure the room is not daisy chained from other rooms, it should be on it's own power back to house main board. If they build in earth loops all you will hear from the sparky,"Its to code". Don't forget about having enough power points, plus spares and know how they are wired, specifically for earthing. The usual suspect is a subwoofer, you can create an electrical loop between a sub, which is powered and the amp, then you have the signal cable which is earthed.

oh and don't forget about Ethernet, run more than you need back to the main switch. I ran 4 individual cables to the amp area, could of done with 2 more.

Take photos of the framing and make a drawings of all studs and dwangs with dimensions for all. This saves your bacon later when you need exact locations for anything behind walls.

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sen8or

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#2460885 14-Apr-2020 09:18

Some great info from Masterpiece and certainly food for thought.

For my room, which is a very similar size to yours, I accepted there would be compromises to get a few of the things I wanted, a 4k image >100inch (previously had 92 and it was just too small for our old seating distance), in ceiling Atmos speakers and decent bass.

My equip -

Integra 5.3 amp. Is 9.2 so can run either 7.2.2 or 5.2.4. I have it as 5.2.2 with a 2nd zone powering the outdoor speakers (to be put up just outside window in back of the HT).

Kef bookshelf (Q350s at the front and Q150s at rear).

Kef Q650 centre

SVS PB12NSD x 2 subs

Kef Q160r in ceiling Atmos.

Sony VPL 270 projector

Ambertec 106 inch manual screen

Projector bracket is chief mount (bought on Amazon), there is a bratek TV bracket behind the screen, but I need either a thinner mount or thinner TV as my old panny plasma sticks out too far, and bratek speaker stands for the rears.

Speaker cable I just went with a 14 gauge speaker cable all around. I'm sure more expensive cable might sound better, but its a cost / benefit trade off and I doubt there'd be much benefit in a less than perfect environment.

The compromises I have are mostly surround placement and proximity of the couch to the back of the wall. As pointed out by masterpiece, this does create a very near field surround experience for those at the left and right of the seating position. Room calibration helps a little, but it doesn't completely negate it.

With the couch being at the rear near the ranch slider, this all but eliminates the use of this as an exit. I knew this upfront, in our previous HT it was very much like this and we rarely used it as a door so not really a compromise. In your layout, if I remember the family / kitchen area correctly, you'd have to walk past one sliding door to go out the other, not very likely.

I am loving my set up, the immersion into the screen is bang on for us (some like closer / more immersive, others less so) and the two big SVS's really do a stellar job. I opted for stand mounted book shelves at the front as I don't use the room for music hardly ever (have separate Denon / Kef R7 set up for that) so wasn't concerned about having to use subs for the bass (although to be fair, before I powered on the subs, the Q350s did a surprisingly good job at mid bass production for music).

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#2460919 14-Apr-2020 10:18

Just be aware that if you are going to put an electric screen that retracts into the ceiling it will have to run parallel to the ceiling trusses. For ease of explanation I’m going to call the wall that backs onto your entranceway the “North Wall”.

It would appear that a drop down screen mounted in the ceiling near the north wall or the south wall will not interfere with trusses. On the south end though you need ceiling space for both the box that the screen is in and structure to hang it off. It is all well and good if the ‘hangers’ are installed during construction otherwise a retrofit will involve some re-gibbing afterwards. For those reasons I believe having the screen at the north end of the room would be ‘easier’.

The mistake I made when installing my screen (room is similar dimensions to yours) is putting the projector screen too close to the wall (it’s actually a slider in my room) because now I’d actually like to put the tv on that same wall (in front of slider) but there isn’t room. The screen needed to be about another 150mm into the room. So the tv is in the corner and its size is restricted by available space. In your case you would need to ensure the door from the lounge won’t hit the screen when it’s down.

If you are going to ceiling mount the projector, make sure you put extra battening/blocking in before gibbing.

Ours is a multipurpose family room rather than a dedicated HT so compromises had to be made. Most of the time it is used for reading (analogue and digital) or watching tv. Therefore the seating is set up for that. The sofas are on furniture glides so can easily be rearranged for movie watching. For a crowd watching the rugby, one of the sofas is put on platforms to raise it a form a grandstand. Light control is the biggest problem (two huge sliders) as what I would like to do doesn’t meet WAF constraints.

As far as speakers go, once again a bit of a compromise. The front three are bookshelf speakers. Then I have six in-ceiling effects speakers and two subs in the front corners. That way I can run a 7:2, a 7:2:2 or a 5:2:4 configuration. If I’m honest, because of the lack of good atmos sources, most of the time it runs in 7:2. Hopefully that will improve as streaming services “get with the program”. Having the tv on the same wall as the projector screen would allow me to use the same sound system. As it is, being in the corner, that isn’t possible.

+1 for putting lots of extra conduit, network cabling, powerpoints and blocking to wall mount stuff before the room is lined. Much cheaper than retrofit and relining. Having said that, our house addition was just before plasma TVs were a ‘thing’ so all our powerpoints and av connections are in the corners of the rooms. Who knows where HT is headed?

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Dunnersfella

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#2460955 14-Apr-2020 11:19

Who knows where home theatre is going?

Well it's largely going where the panel / display industry is marketing it to be.

Ie, 8K and a colour space well beyond what we where using 5 years ago.

4K 120 frames will most likely be a 'thing' this year with the new PS5 and XBox Series X - AVR's will arrive around the same time or follow slightly after.

8K content is still a while away, but you know that the display industry wants it to be implemented yesterday!

So what does this mean for you?

Conduit!

Well, cable and conduit.

The new HDMI 2.1 spec can handle up to 48Gbps.

Current specs are just 18Gbps... and as the cabling standard is yet to be verified, there's no cable that can currently say it will officially do the business (although there are fibre based offerings that will no doubt handle it easily). Forget HDBaseT, forget passive copper cables over anything longer than 2 meters - we're moving on people, we're moving on).

The good news with HDMI 2.1, is that even though your cabling may not achieve 48Gbps, you will STILL GET A PICTURE. Albeit, at a lower resolution / colour space etc.

As you're going for a projector, you are still quite a few years from worrying about 8K at a price that is affordable for us mortals, however genuine 4K projectors (not wobulators) are still $8-9K minimum... hopefully that drops down and we move on from the stop-gap faux-K technology.

In summary, don't let the sparky chose your cables ('cos he uses them at home).

Run LOTS of Cat 6 for data, but understand that it's limited to 10Gbps, so its days of taking video long'ish distances are numbered.

Subwoofer outlets in the corners and centre of the room will help you tweak positions down the track.

Don't worry about bi-wiring.

Don't use an AVR for both the main zone and zone 2 - that's thinking from 5 years ago, there's far better multi-room solutions that cost around the same and offer a far better result (discrete network amps per zone) and offer better redundancy.

Don't over spec subwoofers and under-spec your centre channel. It's a hugely common mistake found in many average to smaller sized rectangular rooms. The cry of 'but I want bass down to 20Hz' is one you'll hear - but unless you're sitting over 50 feet away where the 20Hz soundwave will propagate, you're wasting your cash. Your neighbours might love your subs though... I said 'might'...

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#2461124 14-Apr-2020 14:28

Additionally, the lighting in our HT/Family Room is smart. So saying “Alexa, it’s movie time” dims the lights, starts the projector and HT receiver (which triggers the screen). So depending on how authentic a theatre experience you want, you may also want to consider lighting. Automating the curtains is in the future plans. So maybe you want to consider wiring, even if not connected, for that sort of future fitting.

Because the TVs in our house are all 4K I am slightly less enamoured with my 1080p projector. It is a Panasonic AE8000 and is a great projector but it isn’t 4K. But like Dunnersfella in the post above, true native 4K projectors are still too expensive unless you are a lotto winner (and 8K is right out). I am hoping my future will include a laser 4K projector but that brings up another point. All of my HT equipment is in a cupboard at the rear of the room. That includes the projector, so it is all hidden away when not in use. The advantage is that all the cable runs between sources and the HT receiver, and the receiver and projector are kept as short as possible. It does mean cable runs to the subs and front speakers are longer, but I considered those longer runs easier to achieve successfully than extended hdmi runs. Of course this has the opposite impact if you use a TV for your display (ie you will have a long hdmi run) so everything is better at the TV end of the room.

I have spent some of my time at home during the lockdown removing analogue cabling that has become obsolescent in our AV distribution system. Conduit and predrilling made this easier, especially when it was used to pull other cabling through. But I wish I had done more.

Both Samsung and LG have TVs where the ‘gubbins’ of the TV are in a separate box, with only a flat cable in the case of our LG W8 or a thin (almost transparent) cable in the case of our Samsung “Frame” TV (Q series has the same) so being able to hide these connections in the wall will add to the cleanliness of the installation.

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Dunnersfella

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#2461298 14-Apr-2020 18:34

I will add that with HDMI 2.1, we will be going into a situation where HDMI cable quality will actually matter!

That's right... while Monster sold a fib years ago about cables getting you a better picture, with HDMI 2.1 it will matter.

Many cables WILL give you a picture @ 1080i / 1080p or maybe 4K... but not 8K.

Yet there will be cables that can offer all of the above AND 8K.

So some people will actually get better pictures and frame rates by upgrading their cables... just wait until people start jumping on forums and complaining about the picture on their new 8K TV!!!

Did I mention that HDMI is fun?

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ShinyChrome

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#2462066 15-Apr-2020 16:57

Dunnersfella:

Don't over spec subwoofers and under-spec your centre channel. It's a hugely common mistake found in many average to smaller sized rectangular rooms. The cry of 'but I want bass down to 20Hz' is one you'll hear - but unless you're sitting over 50 feet away where the 20Hz soundwave will propagate, you're wasting your cash. Your neighbours might love your subs though... I said 'might'...

I'm not saying I know a whole lot about acoustics (just enough to know how much I don't know) or pretend to understand it all, but that doesn't sound right. For a start, this appears to be completely ignoring room resonance; by that notion that waves must travel their full length to be heard properly, you wouldn't be able to hear any bass at all in a car, or worse, over half of the audibly perceptible spectrum from a set of headphones!

I would agree that for bass frequencies, the effect placement has on a capable subwoofer is incredibly important in regards to the room size, shape, and listening position, but to help control room modes and avoid the peaks and nulls that produce an uneven frequency response. Especially so in smaller rooms.

I definitely agree with the importance of the center as the heavy lifter in a movie soundtrack, but I would opine that a well-designed subwoofer with deep bass extension is just as important for a well rounded HT experience, as quite a few movie LFE soundtracks reach down to 20hz. And while you can turn a powerful subwoofer down to calibrate to the listening space/appease the other half, you can't make a small subwoofer defy the laws of physics! Hell, add as many of them as you can afford to help even out the frequency response for the whole room!

@sen8or, movie night at yours? Your setup looks great! One tiny suggestion: I would pull that center speaker forward to the edge of the cabinet to stop any surface reflections though

33coupe

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#2462176 15-Apr-2020 21:26

Thanks for all of the replies, really appreciated. Lots to think about!

Due to the sofa potentially being an issue I might look at getting a shorter / narrower one which would mean I could move it further away from the wall and leave space to get out of the slider (maybe one day put the sofa on a platform, with another sofa in front lol). Definitely black out curtains, and will have a tv wall mounted, so the screen needs to clear it.

I thought having an all in one would be better for cost / cabling etc. What would you suggest for a zone 2?

I have a 5.1 already, but thats entry level wharfedale 9.5, 9cs, 9.0, SW150. I would like to upgrade to a Klipsch RP280 & SVS subs or something one day

depending on cost, that kind of automation would be amazing. will have a look into it a bit more.

Conduit sounds like a very good idea, thanks

I have actually bought some 2.1 hdmi cables from AliExpress (hopefully they are what they say they are - fingers crossed reviews are correct), but still need to get a cable for the projector to the receiver.

I didnt realise native 4k projectors were so expensive :o(

33coupe

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#2471257 25-Apr-2020 19:11

I've just realised I also have no idea about the networking. I'm currently just using an Netgear d6300.
If I'm running multiple cat6 cables around the house, what kind of hardware do I need (and location)?
Sorry for such a basic question
Thanks

allanf714

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#2509919 22-Jun-2020 17:46

ShinyChrome:

Dunnersfella:

Don't over spec subwoofers and under-spec your centre channel. It's a hugely common mistake found in many average to smaller sized rectangular rooms. The cry of 'but I want bass down to 20Hz' is one you'll hear - but unless you're sitting over 50 feet away where the 20Hz soundwave will propagate, you're wasting your cash. Your neighbours might love your subs though... I said 'might'...

I'm not saying I know a whole lot about acoustics (just enough to know how much I don't know) or pretend to understand it all, but that doesn't sound right. For a start, this appears to be completely ignoring room resonance; by that notion that waves must travel their full length to be heard properly, you wouldn't be able to hear any bass at all in a car, or worse, over half of the audibly perceptible spectrum from a set of headphones!

I would agree that for bass frequencies, the effect placement has on a capable subwoofer is incredibly important in regards to the room size, shape, and listening position, but to help control room modes and avoid the peaks and nulls that produce an uneven frequency response. Especially so in smaller rooms.

I definitely agree with the importance of the center as the heavy lifter in a movie soundtrack, but I would opine that a well-designed subwoofer with deep bass extension is just as important for a well rounded HT experience, as quite a few movie LFE soundtracks reach down to 20hz. And while you can turn a powerful subwoofer down to calibrate to the listening space/appease the other half, you can't make a small subwoofer defy the laws of physics! Hell, add as many of them as you can afford to help even out the frequency response for the whole room!

@sen8or, movie night at yours? Your setup looks great! One tiny suggestion: I would pull that center speaker forward to the edge of the cabinet to stop any surface reflections though

I would have to agree with ShinyChrome. Yes, the center speaker accounts for 70-80% of the content in the average movie. It's important... no doubt. But, a well tuned subwoofer system is aurally one of the most important aspects of home theater. It accounts for a significant portion of the overall "effect." Rarely are subwoofer systems over-spec'd 😎..... and while you may not perceive a 20Hz signal... you will feel it!.. and that's pretty neat. With that said, the OP is not likely to get that room flat to 20Hz...even with two 12" subs capable of producing 20Hz content. Nothing against SVS subs. But, in my experience, it generally necessitates even bigger subs, bass traps, and EQ to get a room that measures reasonably flat to 20Hz and is capable of reaching anywhere close to reference levels.

33coupe

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#2534223 4-Aug-2020 08:07

Sorry to bring this back up but I still havent bought / decided on everything I need.

I'm still looking for recommendations for:

1) a screen (dont mind 2nd hand if anyone is selling:) 100" electric. I thought I had settled on a elite screen then realised it was plus GST :(

2) Projector mount (I bought one over 5 years ago, sold it last year when moving from Akl lol)

I am going with the Epson TW7100, but I guess a universal mount will do.

Will probs get a 9m amplified HDMI cable from jaycar, and hoping kopkiwi still has 100m speaker cable :)

Thanks

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Nurse (R)

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#2534573 4-Aug-2020 15:23

Not that I know anything about HT/multimedia room setups but I know someone who built the whole shebang HT room upstairs with overhead projector, remote controlled retractable screen, in ceiling speakers, TV & PC streaming, with a new house build. Had the professionals in to do it all, including full WiFi home network with Siemens repeaters all over the place, room by room radio, outside speaker zones, including jacuzzi zone, integrated phone, alarm and electronic front door. Separate large LCD TV with separate HT setup with in ceiling speakers, in multi-purpose lounge off open plan kitchen all connected using HDMI and cat cabling of the era 2009-2010.

Big problem - No access to 2nd story roof space of HT/multimedia room. No access to ceiling/floor space ground floor multi-purpose lounge. I believe all cable runs are not in conduit. The whole system setup is run off two Control 4 remotes and radio control panels per room.

So my point here is two fold. CONDUIT, Conduit, conduit and put a discrete manhole in your HT room and install kneeling/crawling planks every which way in the ceiling space area.

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

Dunnersfella

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#2534776 4-Aug-2020 19:37

Agreed re: conduit...

Especially when running amplified 9m HDMI cables from Jaycar.

33coupe

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#2534790 4-Aug-2020 20:19

Yeah will definitely talk to them about conduit.

I've struggled to find a certified 9m hdmi cable. Do you have any recommendations @dunnersfella

ShinyChrome

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#2534843 4-Aug-2020 20:39

I'd check out Monoprice HDMI cables. I just purchased a bunch of the HDMI certified ones from Amazon after having some issues with some cheaper ones and they have been great.

Unfortunately they only go up to 25ft in the certified ones, but they have a 30ft active one that could work for you potentially.

Edit: Changed link as I had the wrong active cable type; as Dunnersfella said below, fiber optic is the way to go.

The AmazonBasics HDMI cables might be worth a look as well and seem to be often recommended for the price round the internets. They also have a lifetime warranty, for whatever that is worth.

There doesn't seem to be many (if any) certified over 25ft, so YMMV. No matter where you go, make sure they have a good return policy.

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